Reading posts on CC and attending college nights, certain colleges are very trendy and then there are the “hyper competitive” colleges that people talk about in hushed tones. Have any of you visited these colleges and come away thinking, “what the…”? Have your kids been disappointed but not wanted to go against the conventional wisdom. This is a chance to simply say what you cannot say on the college threads. I’ll start…
NYU: The Village is an exciting place but when I visited I couldn’t find the campus. It just seemed like a bunch of office buildings with NYU banners hanging on them.
Pomona: The tour guides at Pomona drove me up the wall. Everything about the place was “awesome”. I heard that word and “quirky” a million times. My niece spent about ten minutes looking around and then suggested we drive back to LA.
Harvard: The tour reminded me of tour groups you see in London, following a person holding up a flag. Our guide also spent a lot of time having us look at the impressive lawns and buildings of the business school…which doesn’t accept undergraduates and isn’t part of Harvard College.
Georgetown: My niece loved the front lawn (and the good looking guys). She then said, “this place has five buildings and a cemetery”. We left. She still talks about the guys. The weather was also HIDEOUS. Horribly hot and humid.
My D and I drove there from New York, and it’s in the middle of nowhere. There is only one main street for shops and restaurant, and our tour guide said: “There is a Starbucks there, and a CVS” as though that was everything she needed.
I do think it is a shame that a bad tour can influence a student’s decision so much.
I only had one kid look at ‘elite’ schools. She liked most of them. Never took a tour at Princeton but we walked around campus when in the area, and she liked it, but did not want to apply to the school. It was hot at some schools (WUSTL comes to mind) but she toured in the summer.
My D has worked as a tour guide at Pomona and I don’t think she uses the word quirky, but according to her, everything at the school IS awesome!
You must not have gone down the side streets around Palmer Square. There are plenty of coffee shops, ice cream parlors (The Bent Spoon), restaurants, clothing stores, etc. for students. In fact, there are relatively few chains. Two years ago I planned an activity for a client where they broke out into groups and shopped for various things in downtown Princeton as fodder for brainstorming inspiration so I became very familiar with the stores there (since I had to draw them maps, schedule buses to pick them up at certain times, etc) There were plenty of choices, more than enough for a student’s everyday needs.
The title of this thread referencing “supposedly elite” colleges definitely gives away the OP’s feelings about the matter. Is the idea to just gripe about your volunteer student tour guide who is too enthusiastic? I’m all for HS students going with their gut feeling about a place. We had tours that we left early because my kid just didn’t get the right vibe (e.g, Northwestern), but I don’t pretend that we really know that school and can advise others about it.
Interesting topic! My S did not like UPenn. It was his "I’m applying ED! school until the visit. I wasn’t with him but he said the vibe was very “we know you all will apply and want to come here, so, yeah, whatevs”…
Harvard: he was so amused by al the earnest faces of the kids trying to make a good impression…on a tour. And the tourists! He just thought the way they constantly discussed diversity of race/religion/geography/gender/income and orientation just screamed “Don’t bother bc we don’t want you” to an upper class white Jewish Hetero man from the Metro NY area. Did not apply.
He has lived on campus at both Yale and P, didn’t like them and did not even visit. Did not apply.
I was turned off by our Duke guide, who gushed about how she loved and stalked one of the basketball players…I’m glad their selectivity does not weed out the vapid, bc I saw quite a bit of it on display there. He loved it tho and applied ED: Rejected.
And he loved Tufts, but after a few months of thinking about it, he told me just didn’t feel like convincing himself he was quirky or Tuft-sy anymore, and he supposed that was bc he just wasn’t. So good job on Tufts for showing him what fits so he could see he did not! Did not apply.
His end list was actually full of large publics save for 2 or 3. He did not bother with shooting for the “Top 20”.
Talk to educated people you know in different parts of the country.
Throw out different schools - one supposedly elite in a different part of the country and gauge their reaction.
do they ask where is that?
Then throw out a non elite in their region of their country. Bet they have more of a reaction to that school. Perhaps even very positive…
Truth is many in the Northeast are not so familiar with say Emory, Harvey Mudd or Washington University.
Some people in other regions don’t know the difference between Penn Stste and UPenn.
A large number couldn’t name the Ivy League beyond Harvard, Yale, Princeton and maybe Columbia.
Many employers have a bias against Ivy grads - they don’t stay long, and often seem entitled looking what’s in it for me, rather than driving to produce for the company…
It’s funny that my youngest who was obsessed with going to a school that people “know” - i.e. the prestigious bumper sticker, she was never even tempted to look at any of the Ivies. Nor was my oldest who had the best stats of my three kids. They basically wondered why anyone would want to put themselves through the torture of Ivy admission and then go to school in a pressure cooker.
My older D had some Ivies on her list (some didn’t interest her) and other schools as well. She did not care if she attended an Ivy. She didn’t feel tortured over the admissions process and liked all the schools on her list. She even preferred certain schools over certain Ivies. She ended up attending Brown. She NEVER felt that the school environment was a pressure cooker. She enjoyed Brown very much.
Vandy . . . gorgeous campus but goodness - helicopter parents in droves and a very competitive, “we are so subtle in our awesomeness” vibe. And then there were the students (one of them - our guide) with obviously northern accents throwing out the cutesy ‘ya’ll’.
I’m southern and don’t appreciate fake southern - find it patronizing and strange.
My nephew visited almost all of top 20 colleges with a group of top 10 students from his district and liked most but then decided to apply only to instate programs for BS/MD. He doesn’t like it and wishes that he had picked one of those schools. BS/MD is gruesome and he thinks that it’s more like a trade school than an enriching undergrad experience.
My spouse went to a NESCAC school (I’m not naming it). He can’t imagine paying full price. Says it was a great experience, but not worth 200K+. Stopped interviewing for them because of this.
The only Ivy I visited was UPenn and I was considering applying ED. I visited campus and it was gorgeous, everyone seemed very happy there. I ended up not applying because there was another school I liked more and though UPenn was a long shot I didn’t want to risk it :))
One thing I didn’t like was their tradition of throwing toast at football games. Having seen many homeless people on the drive to UPenn and considering the poverty in Philly wasting that much food was a little unsettling.
My interpretation of “supposedly elite” are the schools that are one or two steps down from the elite schools that nobody would argue about being “elite”.
My feelings about the actual elite schools are: “great schools”.
My feelings about “supposedly elite” schools are: “not worth the full price tag, I don’t care how impressive you think you are.”
We visited Newhouse at Syracuse – wow. “Most of you aren’t good enough to get in, so make other plans” the presentation started. They explained tours would not include going into any building – and indeed, we stood in a quad, and the guide pointed at buildings. The buildings were all locked “because they are only open to students, and hahaha none of you are students yet”. And the topper? At the luncheon/picnic, the admissions staff (adults!) held up a hand and said “We’re having lunch right now, we need you to come back in about 40 minutes”. While sitting at a “Questions? Ask us!” table.
Starting off with NYU was odd to me. I don’t see NYU as an elite school outside of theater. To me, it’s like what DePaul is to Chicago - perfectly fine and respectable, but not the academic heavy hitter, offers a desirable experience mostly driven by being in a fun young-person neighborhood which feels more like living in a city vs a traditional college campus. It’s certainly not on too many radar screens out here.
But I agree that I’ve never been on a campus with so many good-looking people.